Literature audiobooks page 50

Nicht ohne Befangenheit übergebe ich der Lesewelt den erneueten Abdruck dieses Buches. Es hat mir die größte Überwindung gekostet, ich habe fast ein ganzes Jahr gezaudert, ehe ich mich zur flüchtigen Durchsicht desselben entschließen konnte. Bei seinem Anblick erwachte in mir all jenes Unbehagen, das mir einst vor zehn Jahren, bei der ersten Publikation, die Seele beklemmte. Verstehen wird diese Empfindung nur der Dichter oder Dichterling, der seine ersten Gedichte gedruckt sah. Erste Gedichte! Sie müssen auf nachlässigen, verblichenen Blättern geschrieben sein, dazwischen, hie und da, müssen welke Blumen liegen, oder eine blonde Locke, oder ein verfärbtes Stückchen Band, und an manche...

The first significant published short story of French author Guy de Maupassant, and generally acknowledged as his greatest work, “Ball-of-Fat” (French title: Boule de Suif) is the touching story of an interrupted coach ride from Rouen to Le Havre during which occurs the corruption of a principled prostitute by immoral and hypocritical members of the upper class. The story is set during the occupation of Rouen at the time of the Franco-Prussian War.

Part of the Comedie Humane and a "supplementary" tale to go with Father Goriot and Gobseck. Nucingen is the married family name of one of Father Goriot's daughters. "James Waring" is a pseudonym of Ellen Marriage (Balzac was considered sometimes too racy by the Victorian Age).

Ethan Hopkins and Mickey McSquizzle-a "Yankee" and an "Irishman"-encounter a colossal, steam-powered man in the American prairies. This steam-man was constructed by Johnny Brainerd, a teenaged boy, who uses the steam-man to carry him in a carriage on various adventures.

“Tiger, tiger, burning bright/In the forests of the night/ What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” These often quoted lines are part of The Tiger in William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.

In 1789, William Blake released a limited edition of the book. Being a gifted artist, poet and printmaker, he undertook to personally publish all his work himself through a very painstaking but highly artistic process of etching, thereby transferring his drawings and poems individually onto copper plates by hand. He himself inked each plate and printed each individual page, hand painted the illustrations and bound the pages to create eac...

“He had faith in his good fortune, in that power of attraction which he felt within him - a power so irresistible that all women yielded to it.”



Though firmly set in 1880s Paris, Maupassant's gripping story of an amoral journalist on the make could, with only slight modifications of detail, be updated to the 1960s, to the Reagan-Thatcher years, or maybe to the present day. Anti-hero Georges Duroy is a down-at-heel ex-soldier of no particular talent. Good-looking but somewhat lacking in self-confidence, he discovers an ability to control and exploit women - whereupon his career in journalism takes off, fuelled by the corruption of colleagues and government arrivistes. H...

In order to liven up the literary history of Great Britain in the 1890s (as if Oscar Wilde, Stevenson, Kipling, Hardy, etc., were not lively enough) Max Beerbohm wrote short biographies of six imaginary writers. Though their works of course no longer exist, he leaves the impression that the literary world is really none the poorer. It is, of course, the six men themselves (Beerbohm himself is the seventh man of the title) who are worth our attention. ( Nicholas Clifford)

Note that the Gutenberg edition of Seven Men is incomplete, but the missing sections may be found separately James Pethel http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/759 E.V. Laider http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/761

Four selected chapters from The Measure Of A Man; A Tale of the Big Woods, by Norman Duncan. What could be more Christmasy than: Babies, especially a homeless one; a woman who loves; a man who protects; a cold night; glittering stars; poor working-men witnesses; gifts. ( Title page and david wales)

This bittersweet tragicomedy centers on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chancellor, Ransom's cousin and a Boston feminist; and Verena Tarrant, a pretty, young protégée of Olive's in the feminist movement. The storyline concerns the struggle between Ransom and Olive for Verena's allegiance and affection, though the novel also includes a wide panorama of political activists, newspaper people, and quirky eccentrics.

Douze nouvelles dans lesquelles Guy de Maupassant pose un regard ironique, voire pessimiste, sur la société française de la fin du XIXe siècle.
(Par Didier)